


Second Option

by Arsenic



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Captivity, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Scarecrow's Fear Toxin (DCU)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 15:05:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19008256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: Tim rescued Jason from Scarecrow by himself.  It's only later Jason learns how.





	Second Option

**Author's Note:**

> This is unbeta'ed because it got written essentially by accident (long story) and being perfectly honest, I'm just too lazy to bother in this particular instance.

Kade, one of the orphans Jason has actually managed to convince to stay with their foster parents, and also one of Jason’s best sources of information, looks shaken. Jason frowns beneath the hood and asks, “You all right?”

Kade holds their hand out, a memory stick lying in their palm. “For you.”

Jason takes the stick, frowning more deeply when Kade flinches away. Kade didn’t flinch from Jason even when they thought he took his protection of the kids and night workers in Gotham out in trade. “Kade, what—”

“Scarecrow,” Kade says.

Jason swallows back the green that burns in his throat, behind his eyes. “He dose you?”

“Little bit. I—I’m okay, mostly.”

“Like hell, kid.” Jason digs into one of his pockets, where the newest antidote is stored. He holds it out to Kade. “No more than a swallow at a time. Wait five minutes, if the fear hasn’t settled, take another, okay?”

Kade’s hand shakes, but they take the vial and nod. “You sure you don’t need it?”

“I’m gonna be fine. You get home, okay?”

“Yeah.”

Jason’s about to turn away when he thinks to ask, “Kade. What did he say was on it?”

Kade swallows. “A secret.” Then, “I didn’t look, I swear.”

Jason knows. Some of the kids who help him would have, nearly all of the street walkers, unquestionably. But Kade reminds him a lot of Cassandra, too honest and ethical for their own good. “Okay. Thanks.”

*

After patrol, Tim goes back to the penthouse, because Jason hates it there, says it makes him feel like a dirt stain left too long to ever be cleaned. His words exactly. It’s not that Tim’s avoiding him. He’s not. They saw each other yesterday, and they fought together the night before that.

Tim’s just…he just needs some time to let down his walls, is all. And Jason can’t see that, not right now.

But when he slips onto the railing and into the French doors on the west side of the unit, it’s obvious someone is there. “Uh, Dick?”

“Guess again,” Jason says, his voice coming from the kitchen.

Tim takes off his mask, blinking. “Jay?”

“Don’t give a guy a key if you don’t expect him to use it, Drake.” 

Tim comes around the corner to see Jason making huevos rancheros, which is the only dish he knew from before Alfred’s lessons, and something he still does criminally well. Also, Tim will eat breakfast at any hour of any day, and Jason knows this. Jason knows almost all of Tim’s weaknesses, really.

Tim says, “Um. I mean, this isn’t usually your scene.”

“You’re my scene,” Jason says calmly, without taking his eyes off the stove. “I had started to think maybe you were just…I dunno, realizing you’d been slumming it, or growing out of a weirdly time-resistant boyhood crush, or maybe just falling for someone else.”

“What.” 

“Yeah, no, I know, I should have put the pieces together. Crane gets the drop on me, you get me out by your lonesome, I’m too scrambled to even consider there are holes in your story, you play cool for a couple of weeks and then shit hits the fan, but you’re you, and I’m me, and whatever else, we’re both products of B, so instead of telling me what happened or that you need help or, well, _anything,_ you just do your best to pretend everything is fine on the assumption that I don’t have the emotional depth to figure out it’s not.”

Jason doesn’t even sound mad. He sounds _tired_ , and that’s what kills Tim. “How’d you find out?”

“Crane dosed one of my kiddos, sent him with a nice HD recording of the whole thing.”

“Excuse me a moment,” Tim says, and walks as quickly as he can to the nearest bathroom, where he promptly pukes up everything he has ever eaten in his lifetime. 

At some point, Jason joins him, unfastening the suit in order to rub at Tim’s lower back, put a warm washcloth across the back of his neck. When Tim has stopped long enough that Jason can gently pull him into a half-hug, Jason says, “Sorry, that was—”

Tim shakes his head. “Just. I did. Get you out on my own. We all have our own approaches. Mine is…”

“Smart. The third option. The clever fix. The problem, Tim, is that sometimes you think sacrificing yourself is smart, and that is never actually true.”

Tim pushes back to look Jason in the eyes as he says, “I would do it again. In a fucking second.”

“Yeah.” Jason sighs. “Yeah, I know. And that’s what worries me.”

*

_Four Months Earlier_

This might be Jason’s fault. Sure, there were extenuating circumstances involving a baby and a car crash and some other shit, but Jason might, maybe, have not been as aware of his surroundings as he really needs to be at all times. In a fair world, momentary lapses like this wouldn’t be repaid with him clawing his way back to consciousness through what is very likely a concussion, restrained six ways from Sunday, with Dr. Crazypants #3, AKA, Scarecrow, standing in front of Jason with a considering look on his face.

Fuck Jason’s life, seriously. First and second, for that matter.

Crane tilts his head and smiles the smile of the seriously psychotic—a smile Jason is all too familiar with—and says, “I wonder if anyone will come for you, hm?”

It’s said casually, as though the answer doesn’t matter to him, as though it doesn’t matter to Jason. Jason blinks in a bored manner right back. He knows who will come. That’s what has him worried.

Of course, when Crane leaves and floods whatever hellhole Jason is currently stuck in with the newest version of his fear gas, Jason stops knowing anything except the sheer terror of being alone and in pain and unable to escape. Of waiting for someone. He can’t remember who.

*

_Present Day, Earlier That Evening_

Jason goes back to the safe house he’s fairly certain Babs hasn’t bugged. Tim, yes, Tim is a nosy motherfucker who has bugged all of Jason’s safe houses, but Tim also has a habit of sucking Jason’s brain out of his dick now and then, and Jason might be more than a little bit in love with the asshole, so he allows it.

Nonetheless, he uses the computer he asked Tim not to hack to open the file. At the time he does it because he’s concerned there’s something on it that’s not his secret to tell. Once he’s seen it, well. He’s glad he was overly cautious.

It’s a video. Not a security camera, either. This was taped by something an amateur film student might use. It’s not fancy, but the edges of everything are sharp and clear, the sound is good. Tim’s back is to the camera. Red Robin’s, really. Crane’s holding a vial of his toxin; Tim has something in his hand that is no doubt the most up-to-date antidote he’s got.

Crane smiles, the same smile he’d given Jason, and flicks a switch next to him. On a screen Jason cannot see, but Tim clearly can, a feed to the then-Jason goes live. Jason makes a face and breathes through the sound of his own desperate, terrified screams. Fear toxin is what it is. None of them makes it out of something like that with their dignity intact. Alive is the goal, and somehow, Jason managed that one.

He has a sickening feeling he’s about to find out how.

Crane shuts off the video feed. Tim’s got his bo staff at the ready. Crane’s not rolling his eyes, but Jason can tell he wants to. Jason wants to shoot him between the eyes.

Crane says, “You can try it your way. I’m going to drop this vial and disappear on you while you’re getting the antidote into your system and coming down. Then you’ve got to find where he actually is and get past all the security I put up to get to him, and you’re probably out of antidote at that point, so you have to get him somewhere in that state to help him out.”

Tim is still, listening.

“Or we make this easy.”

“Easy,” Tim says flatly. Jason thinks _no, no, do not take the easy option _knowing Tim is going to, because otherwise, he wouldn’t be sitting here. He thinks about turning the video off. In the end, though, he stays where he is, because if Tim did what Jason thinks he did, Jason should have to live with that, too.__

__Crane smiles again. It’s not the same smile this time. It’s actively predatory. “You give me an hour to do whatever I want with you, I give you the key and directions, plus a better version of the antidote to this particular mix than you likely already have.”_ _

__Jason clenches his fists so tightly he draws blood, even with his nails blunted. “First option, Tim. Jesus Christ, first—”_ _

__He’s still repeating it when Tim sheathes his bo staff. “One hour.”_ _

____

*

_Four Months Earlier_

Tim can do this. He can. He can’t leave Jason to scream like that for the next few hours, maybe a day if the antidote isn’t strong enough to cut all the way through. He just…can’t. Not when he has enough of an idea of the things that visit Jason in his nightmares, not when he knows that under the influence of the toxin, Jason will feel abandoned. Everyone has their weaknesses. Tim has plenty. Jason is easily the biggest one.

It occurs to him in the back of his mind that Crane had to have known that. That this particular plot only plays out if you know that. It’s a problem, but one for another time.

Right now, he needs to concentrate on the way the concrete hurts his knees, because if he thinks about what he’s doing with his mouth, he’s going to bite down, he’s going to fight. He can’t fight. He agreed.

The fingers in his hair are wrong, the wrong length, the wrong shape. And they pull. That’s, Jason doesn’t—

Knees. Tim thinks about his knees. The suit needs better protection for them, clearly. He’ll have to work on that.

He loses hold of the thought as Crane yanks too hard, pushes too far, and Tim can’t adjust, can’t breathe, can’t—

Crane pushes him off and he heaves onto the floor. He closes his eyes and hears Jason’s screams. Anything Crane wants. Cheap at twice the price.

He repeats it to himself as he strips on command. He keeps the mask on. Crane doesn’t tell him to do otherwise, thankfully, because he’s not sure how he would balance the scales of keeping Jason safe or keeping them all safe. He doesn’t want to know.

He doesn’t want a lot of things.

He tries his hardest simply not to think as Crane drives in, those wrong-wrong- _wrong_ fingers digging into the skin of Tim’s hips, long fingernails scoring into his skin. Keeps his mind as blank as possible as Crane informs Tim how well he takes it, what a proper little slut he must be. Doesn’t allow himself to hear the screams in his own mind as Crane buries himself inside, licking at the skin of Tim’s neck even as he empties himself into Tim.

Tim forces himself into action the minute Crane laughs, tells him his hour is up. Focuses on getting the key, getting the information, then taking his bo staff to Crane’s face when he’s not expecting it, is all set to leave. Tim binds him, drops a text to Gordon, and goes to get Jason.

He can freak out later. For now, he’s got a boyfriend to rescue.

*

_Present Day_

It’s quiet for a long time before Jason says, “What I don’t think you understand is that I can handle my nightmares. All of them. They suck, and I’d prefer not having them, but I’ve survived a hell of a lot worse than my own damn mind. I’m not sure I can handle you being seriously harmed. Not for any reason, and definitely, _definitely_ not for me.”

Tim doesn’t open his eyes to respond, “Yes, well, I can’t handle the fact that you privately still think I’m slumming it, as you so eloquently suggested earlier this evening, so I guess we’re all just gonna have to live with shit we can’t handle, aren’t we?”

“I’m not saying that’s not a valid point, but it’s kind of a ‘what about’ play at the moment.”

Tim sighs. “It’s not, Jay. You think I shouldn’t have done it because you think you’re not worth it. I think I damn well should have done it, because you’re worth ten of me. Same problem, different angle.”

After a while, Tim asks, “Did you fall asleep?”

“Nope, considering that.”

“Vigilantism isn’t for the emotionally healthy. Look at Bruce.”

“All else aside, there are good reasons Bruce isn’t my role model. Didn’t Clark and Lo go to a therapist at some point?”

“Years ago, yeah, before Jon.”

“Do you know who?”

“Uh.” Tim blinks. “I think it might be someone from the Corps? Like, I don’t think it’s the same person Jessica sees, but pretty sure they got the name from her or Hal. Possibly Kyle would know.”

“I’ll give him a call. Him and Roy. Pretty sure he saw someone for a while after Jade.”

Tim blinks again. His brain feels slow. “Are you—you want us to go to therapy?”

“You’re recovering from recent trauma, I’m like a living hurricane of trauma, we’ve both got childhood shit, B fucks up everything he ever touches, and we both think we don’t deserve each other. So, call me crazy, I think it might be a solid way forward.”

“Bruce does his best.”

“Wow, that’s what you got from all that? Also, can we have that fight, once again, another time?”

“I’m sure we’ll have it constantly in therapy.”

Jason stills. “Oh. Yeah?”

“What, you thought you were willing to fight for this relationship, but not me?”

Jason says, “Well, thematically, you have to admit, it’s illustrative of the problem we both have.”

Tim laughs. His insides feel a little rusty, like he needs to remind his muscles how to perform that particular movement. “You have a point.”

Jason kisses the top of his head. Tim asks, “Jay. Um. I know this place gives you the heebie jeebies, but could you stay? Tonight?”

Holding him a little more tightly, Jason says, “Long as you need.”


End file.
